Q: Our underground mine has thousands of designed stopes in the life of mine plan which have been drilled to varying degrees of resource status. How can I generate a report detailing the resource categories contained within each stope solid?

A: The first step is to assign the resource category into the block model, by adding a classification variable (if it does not already exist) using Block > Manipulation > Add Variable. A simple block calculation script, as per the example below, can be used to populate the classification variable ("class", in this instance) and run using Block > Manipulation > Execute Script.

The classification variable is then used during block model resource reporting (Block > Advanced Reserves > Advanced Reserves Editor) as a breakdown field, allowing stope solids to be tagged with resource classification. As resource classifications rarely match stope boundaries, a life of mine stope may include more than one resource type and hence a percentage of each classification needs to be generated for reporting. This fractional data does not exist in the block model, but can be extracted and reported by addition of derived columns during the resource reporting process.

These derived columns are calculated on the fly from the initial resource report output, using the setup in the image below:

This process generates the desired output of stope name plus the tonnage and percentage of material per stope, broken into the relevant resource categories.

Once the report has been generated and saved as a csv file, it can be added to each stope triangulation as attributes. Use Model > Triangle Attributes > CSV Import Attributes which uses the stope name to match 3D geometry with the stope data. Once the data is imported, hover the mouse over each triangulation and the attributes will appear, as shown:

Now that the triangulations have attributes, the attributes can be used to control triangulation visibility using Model > Triangle Attributes > Triangulation Visibility. The triangulations can also be coloured using the attribute data using Model > Triangle Attributes > Colour by Attribute. You can set up different colour legends to suit your requirements.

A demonstration data set showing this capability is available from your local Maptek office.